


Things Said

by Owlix



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Ambiguous Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hugs, M/M, Mnemosurgery, Short, self-inflicted memory erasure, various mini fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-03-18 00:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3548525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlix/pseuds/Owlix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of mini-fics that I wrote in response to the tumblr "things said" meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prowl / Chromedome - #5

_Prowl/Chromedome #5 - things you didn’t say at all_

 

This time, Prowl was going to tell him.

He’d tell Chromedome what he’d done to himself. What he’d  _repeatedly_ done to himself. Prowl had to tell him. Even putting aside the emotional and tactical dangers of this repeated memory erasure, there were health concerns. Every time Chromedome did this, it was another unnecessary risk. Good as he was, every self-alteration was taking a toll on his neural structure. Eventually he’d fry his own neural net.

Prowl would tell him, this time. He _would_.

But when Chromedome let Prowl into his hab suite, he looked a wreck. It was difficult to keep from staring. Prowl composed himself, preparing to speak, trying to push practiced words past his lips.

Chromedome embraced him.

“Prowl.” Chromedome’s voice was familiar and broken and very, very close. His frame against Prowl's was familiar even after all this time, and pleasantly warm. “Why did I leave you? No one else can put up with either of us. What made me think I’d ever find anyone who could? What —” He trailed off, a hiss of incoherent static.

“You’ve been drinking,” Prowl said, wrinkling up his nose.

Chromedome just held him tighter. “Having a bad night.” His clever fingers worked their way in between familiar transformation seams at Prowl’s back, fingertips tracing the hinges of his doors. “Stupid of me. Can’t figure out why I’m so sad. It’s not like something happened. But I feel so alone tonight.”

Something  _had_  happened. Something Chromedome had erased. Something Prowl had to tell him about.

“Chromedome—” Prowl started to say.

“Prowl.” Chromedome’s grip tightened. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Prowl didn’t say a word.


	2. Rossum's Trinity - #15

_Rossum's Trinity #15 - things you said with too many miles between us_

 

“You let him take the blame for you,” Magnus said.

Rodimus knew the set of Magnus’ jaw and what it meant - familiar, now that Magnus was back in the armor.

Normally Rodimus would argue — point out the mitigating factors, explain that he’d tried to keep Drift from doing what he’d done, that Drift had insisted.

Except Rodimus hadn’t tried hard enough. Except Drift was gone now. Gone because of him, the same way people were dead because of him. Rodimus couldn’t make excuses for himself. Not any more.

“Drift did what he thought was best for the crew,” Rodimus said, voice tight. “And you’re right, Magnus. I… I let him.”

“I expected more from you, Rodimus.” Magnus looked out the window at the stars, optics going distant. “And I expected… less from him.”


	3. Rung and Whirl - #19

_Rung and Whirl #19 -  things you said when we were the happiest we ever were_

 

 

“You’re drunk.” Whirl prodded Rung with one clawtip.

Rung let Whirl’s gentle prodding rock him back and forth again. “Am I?” He checked the readout on his HUD and giggled. “I suppose I am, just a little bit.” It had been a long time since he’d let himself get noticeably intoxicated. But after speaking with Perceptor, Rung had come to the bar to find an overwhelming sense of happiness and joy, and Swerve kept filling up his drink, and he mixed them sweet…

“A _little bit_ ,” Whirl echoed skeptically.

He had a point. “Maybe more than a little bit,” Rung admitted.

Whirl stared, optic dilating wide, then spiraling narrow. The intensity of his attention could be unnerving - when it wasn’t scattered wide, it tended towards laser-focus. But nothing about it was intimidating tonight. Rung let him stare.

“Didn’t think you were _allowed_ to get drunk. Isn’t there some kinda rule against it?” Whirl glanced across the bar and synthesized a snort. “Frag, guess not. Even Magnus is drinking. Weird night.”

Rung smiled at him, far too broadly. “ _No one died_ , Whirl. Do you fully appreciate the significance of that? The sheer improbability of it? The _entire universe_ was ending, but somehow we returned home with no casualties. Not a one. We even brought Brainstorm back alive.” Rung laughed again, giddy.

Whirl was still staring at him, intense and inscrutable. Rung just smiled broader.

“And you. And _you_ , Whirl.” Rung put a hand on Whirl’s forehelm - a gesture of affection he would usually refrain from, especially with an empurata survivor, but it seemed important, suddenly. Too important to hold back. “Do you appreciate the gravity of what you’ve done? The value in it? Do you even realize how far you’ve come?”

Whirl was still staring. After a long moment, he pressed his head up against Rung’s hand.

“Think about how you would’ve responded in the past, Whirl. Even a year ago. You wouldn’t have done what you did earlier tonight.” Rung gave Whirl’s head an affectionate shake. Whirl let him. “ _You saved his life_. You hate Megatron more than anyone, and you saved his life. For the sake of the universe.”

“That isn’t exactly what…” Whirl muttered low before trailing off.

“It is. You saved us all, Whirl. You saved him, and you saved all of us, and I’m so proud of you.” Rung was too drunk to keep the smile from his face or the emotion from his voice. “I’m so _proud_.”

There was a click as Whirl deactivated his optic. It stayed dark for a long moment. Rung lifted his hand away, and Whirl’s head twitched up to follow it before he pulled himself back.

Just before Rung asked him what was wrong, Whirl’s optic activated again, dilated and very bright. He raised a claw and shook it. Swerve ran over, exhausted after the long night, but grinning.

Whirl tapped on Rung’s glass with one claw tip and quietly ordered him another drink.


	4. Cyclonus and Tailgate - #12

_Cyclonus and Tailgate #12 - things you said when you thought i was asleep_

 

 

In the darkness and the quiet, when he thought Tailgate was sleeping, Cyclonus prayed.

At first, Tailgate hadn’t recognized it for what it was. His grasp of the Primal Vernacular was limited to the song lyrics Cyclonus had taught him, and most of those had been war marches or ballads. Even then, Tailgate had memorized them by rote, not understanding the words that he was singing.

So when Cyclonus softly began to speak into the empty dark, Tailgate lay quiet and still, not sure what that tone in his voice meant but unwilling to break the spell by asking.

Maybe Cyclonus was simply talking to himself. He spent so much of his time in here, in this dark room while Tailgate rested. Sitting at his bedside, singing him to sleep, holding his hand. Of course Cyclonus would be frustrated and tired…

But Tailgate had heard Cyclonus muttering to himself before. It had never sounded like this. And as he listened, he recognized a few of the words; “Primus” was the same in the Primal Vernacular as it was in Neocybex, even with the pronunciation shifts and Cyclonus’ heavy accent.

But it wasn’t the few words he could grasp that led Tailgate to comprehension. It was the way Cyclonus spoke them.

Tailgate had heard Cyclonus speak like that before. Only twice.

The first time had been after the funeral for Rewind and the others. Cyclonus had deactivated his optics and spoken the words so low and soft that even Tailgate, sitting next to him, couldn’t make them out. But he remembered that solemn tone of voice, sincere and strangely vulnerable.

The second was after Cyclonus had stabbed him. Tailgate had thought Cyclonus was granting him his request for a quick death, and he’d been glad for it, but it hadn’t felt like dying. And afterwards it hurt more instead of less. Tailgate hadn’t understood. And Cyclonus’ body had been heavy, draped over him. And as he’d spoken, repeating the same incomprehensible phrases again and again, voice humble and broken, Tailgate had known that he was praying without understanding the words.

Cyclonus prayed into the dark. And Tailgate didn’t understand much about religion, but it seemed like it would be wrong to interrupt. He lay still, and he listened, and he wondered if someday Cyclonus would teach him to pray the way he’d taught him to sing.


	5. Prowl / Chromedome - #22

_Prowl/Chromedome #22 - things you said after it was over_

 

 

Nothing. There was no “after it was over,” because  _it wasn’t over._

Prowl knew what “over” looked like. Erased memories. A blank spot in Chromedome’s head, and a carefully cultivated wall around that gap. And if Chromedome couldn’t exactly erase Prowl from his memory entirely, he was capable of subtler measures. Prowl knew the limits of Chromedome’s capabilities very well. Chromedome could have dulled his emotional responses to Prowl. He hadn’t.

 _That_  was what “over” would have looked like. Indifference. An absence of feeling. A blank stare.

But  _this_?

This thing between them - whatever it was now, because it hadn’t been  _love_ for a long time - it was the only connection in Chromedome’s life that seemed to last. It hadn’t ended. It had changed - their sniping and bickering had gotten meaner, physical touch had gotten rarer, that softness in Chromedome’s optics had gotten more difficult to draw out - but it hadn’t ended.

It had survived four million years of war. It had outlasted all of Chromedome’s previous marriages. And odds were good that it would still exist when this newest Conjunx was nothing but another gap in Chromedome’s neural net.


	6. Prowl / Chromedome - #17

_Prowl/Chromedome #17 -  things you said that i wish you hadnt_

 

 

_“I never loved you.”_

Prowl turned Chromedome’s words over and over in his head. He didn’t think that they were true.

Chromedome had been lashing out. Trying to push Prowl away. Trying to hurt him.

It was familiar behavior. Chromedome behaved this way whenever he began getting serious with a new mech. With someone who he thought was his first after Prowl, because he’d erased everyone in between. It was hardly a new pattern. Chromedome said things to hurt Prowl and drive him away, to prove to himself and to his new infatuation that he was over the only past relationship he remembered. Cruel things. Intentionally unkind. Generally untrue.

But he’d never said  _that_ before.

Chromedome had said the words, but hadn’t meant them. They weren’t true. They  _probably_ weren’t true.

Prowl fed the hypothesis through his statistical simulation processor. The processor churned and struggled; Prowl was pushing it far outside of its original design specs, forcing it to deal with questions like these when it had originally been intended for little more than crime scene analysis. But the processor worked well enough for battle strategies; surely with enough raw data it would adapt to handle any situation. Even this.

Prowl fed it evidence, for and against:

_The soft glow of Chromedome’s optics in the dark. The careful touch of his hand. The glow of his exposed spark, whirling and brilliant, tingling against Prowl’s hand. Chromedome’s voice, saying “yeah,” saying “me too.” The fact that he still cared enough to lash out. Chromedome’s memories of them, untouched and unaltered._

_Their endless arguments and bickering. The ways in which they’d never quite fit together. Chromedome had never proposed, and before Prowl could work up the courage to try, Chromedome had left. How easily Chromedome had moved on, in ways that Prowl himself could never manage. Chromedome’s voice, never quite saying the words back to him. Chromedome’s memories of them, untouched and unaltered._

Prowl’s statistical processor churned through it all, every scrap of data, struggling and aching. When it finally finished the results shone dully on Prowl’s HUD: a mess of useless vague statistics, all with an unacceptable margin of error. Simulation results: inconclusive.

Prowl offlined his optics, put a hand to his aching forehead, and ran the simulation again.


	7. Rung and Whirl #18

_Rung & Whirl #18 - things you said when you were scared_

 

Despite Whirl’s distinctive appearance - mechs with his alt mode were uncommon, and mechs with empurata disfigurement increasingly more so - Rung almost didn’t recognize him through the window of the tiny solitary confinement cell.

That mess of parts and welds and plasma-burned metal, bubbling paint and smears of charcoal…It barely looked like a mech at all. But it wasn’t just the physical damage. More than that, it was the way he sat in one corner of the tiny cell - a pile of disparate parts rather than the alert, restless individual that Rung knew Whirl to be.

Whirl wasn’t restrained; there hadn’t been enough of both arms left for Magnus to cuff him. The medics had welded him shut where he’d been ripped open. They’d stopped the leaking. But when Whirl had started to come to, they’d thrown him in here rather than risk further sedation.

Rung knew what happened before he’d arrived. The information had found its way to him by the Autobot gossip network:  _Whirl had gone rogue. Ultra Magnus had been forced to step in and bring him back under control, by application of extreme force._  As usual, Ultra Magnus could be relied upon to exercise as much restraint as possible; he’d managed to bring Whirl in alive. This was the aftermath.

Whirl wasn’t talking. He wasn’t moving. The medics were afraid to get close.

As the Wreckers’ on-call psychologist, Whirl was his patient, and Rung had a duty of care. He stepped inside the cell. The guard locked it behind him but didn’t step away from the window.

The poorly-circulated air stank of burned paint and half-processed fuel. The cell was small and featureless, and Whirl was very large. Rung was unable to keep a safe distance.

“Whirl,” Rung said, with practiced calm that was part compassionate, part clinical, “do you remember who I am?”

Whirl slowly turned his face up to point in Rung’s direction but otherwise remained still. His optic flickered; it was badly cracked, and too-bright yellow light bled through a gap, dimming as the optic behind the glass narrowed. He gave no impression that he’d understood the words.

“My name is Rung. I did your intake evaluations. Do you remember that?”

Whirl’s single optic flickered back off - by choice or malfunction, it was impossible to tell. He shifted. Rung became aware of a faint rattling sound. Was Whirl damaged worse than the medics had initially realized? No. No, Whirl was  _shaking_.

Rung’s perception of the situation spun. Could all this - the catatonia, the lashing-out… Could it be a _fear response_? But what was there to fear? Whirl had faced down  _Ultra Magnus_  without flinching, and Rung was familiar his file.

Familiar enough to know Whirl’s extended history of incarceration. And this cell - for someone Whirl’s size, and Whirl’s history, it would be smothering.

“Whirl?” No response. “Whirl, do you want to get out of this cell?”

Whirl’s head jolted up. His body shuddered, and his vocalizer clicked. He made a noise - static that trailed off into broken binary. He tried again and managed only one clear, questioning word through the hiss of static.

“– _out_ –?”

Rung’s intuition had been correct. Some part of him filed that information away for later use.

“Yes. Out,” Rung said. It wasn’t quite a lie. Rung would get him out of the cell and into a contained medibay. After that? Well, he’d do what he could. 


	8. Ratchet & Drift - #16

_Ratchet & Drift #16 - things you said with no space between us_

 

“You were right.”

Ratchet looked up sharply; the medibay had been empty for an hour or so save Magnus, and in his current unconscious state he hardly counted as company. Ratchet had planned to take advantage of the relative isolation to rest. His duty shift was over. He’d even found the flask of engex he’d had stashed for just such a moment. Ratchet had leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on his desk - he was so tired and stiff, he’d had to lift them with his hands, one at a time. He hadn’t been expecting --

“Drift.”

Ratchet exhaled and shifted his body weight, working his feet back towards the ground. He’d just gotten comfortable and he didn’t want to move, but the way Drift was looking at him - wide-opticed and tense, his mouth a sharp line - it made him nervous.

“What are you talking about? You should be taking it easy. Give your neural network time to adjust. I reattached both your _legs_. You should be _laying down_. Did you _run_ here?”

“You were right, Ratchet.”

Once repeated, Drift’s frantic words began to sink in. Ratchet narrowed his optics at their sheer improbability. “What did you just say?”

Drift stepped into the room. The door shut behind him. He glanced to the right and left, making sure they were relatively alone, then stepped close enough that Ratchet could feel the intense electromagnetic interference of his circuitry. Drift’s optics were Autobot blue, now, no longer the yellow Ratchet remembered or the Decepticon red they’d shifted to when he’d gone by another name. They gleamed.

“At Crystal City. What you said to me. You were right. What I’ve been looking for… It’s absolution. Absolution, not forgiveness, not repentance.”

Ratchet's friendship with Drift, such as it was, consisted mostly of bickering and sniping, trading insults and trying to prove each other wrong, briefly punctuated with moments like this. Moments of vulnerability and truth. Each time, they found Ratchet unprepared. He still hadn’t processed the last one - facing down Overlord, coldly half-sure that he and Drift were both about to die, strangely comforted to know that at least it would be together. He wasn’t ready for another.

“And that’s wrong,” Drift continued. “I don’t _deserve_ absolution. I don’t even deserve _forgiveness_. I haven’t earned it. Not even close. It's wrong, wanting something like that without paying the price.”

“Drift.” Ratchet was still at a loss. “What is this about? Overlord?” Drift twitched, a too-apparent wince of pain that he immediately attempted to hide. “That wasn't your fault. You did the best you could to stop him. We all did.”

“No,” Drift said. “You don’t understand.” His optics were downcast and dim. Ratchet waited, but he didn’t clarify.

“Drift?”

More silence. Then Drift moved towards him, a surge of white armor plate. His arms wrapped around Ratchet’s broad chassis in a painfully tight embrace.

Ratchet froze. Drift didn’t often touch people, and he generally didn’t like being touched. The stiffness of his frame whenever most mechs put a friendly hand on him made his preferences very clear. Most people assumed it was some kind of ‘con thing, but Ratchet knew better. Drift had been that way when Ratchet first met him, years before the war. His early experiences hadn't lead to a tolerance of casual touch.

Drift had welcomed physical contact from Ratchet before. Minor things - a hand on a shoulder, Ratchet helping Drift stand, holding Drift’s hand on Messatine when Drift had thought that he was dying.

Nothing like this.

Drift ran hot. Ratchet already knew that - it was normal for mechs of Drift's frametype - but knowing it was different than feeling it against his plating, close and immediate. Drift’s electromagnetic field shivered with frantic fluctuations, but his breath was calm and sure against Ratchet’s neck.

After a moment of stunned stillness, Ratchet returned the embrace. Awkwardly - one hand still held his flask of engex - but more surely as Drift leaned into it. 

“I’m sorry,” Drift said, softly enough that Ratchet barely caught the words over the hum of their engines. As if ashamed, Drift pulled away.

“For what? I hate to say it, Drift, but you’ve done a lot worth apologizing for over the years.”

Drift flinched again. Ratchet almost regretted saying the words. Or maybe he just regretted that they were true. He waited, but Drift didn’t clarify.

“Look, Drift. It’s been a long day.” Ratchet sighed. “A long, terrible day. For all of us. We both could use some rest. Go back to your hab suite. Get some recharge. Give yourself some time to adjust to your repairs. We can talk about this tomorrow. All right?”

Ratchet could see Drift fighting with himself before he finally shut his optics and nodded.  He hesitated at the door, turning back for one last look. Despite his exhaustion, Ratchet almost told him to stay. But then Drift turned away again, and the door hissed shut behind him.

Ratchet sighed. He heaved his feet back up onto his desk, one at a time, leaned back in his chair, and took a drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That should do it for this series. Thanks for reading! And thanks to everyone who sent me a prompt on tumblr!


End file.
